Traffic

Here I am sitting in the Traffic department at work. Today is slow, and that's weird because it's usually chaos on a Friday.  So I thought I would write a little about my job and what I do. I'm the Traffic Coordinator/Continuity Specialist.  I work for FOX 13 KSTU television in SLC, UT.  I've been in my position for 16 mos now.  Traffic is not what you think, it has nothing to do with cars on the road.  It's part of the sales/advertising machine.

Sales people sell the commercial time, my boss (who is in Kansas City) decides which commercials will go where and when, my local boss decides how much the commercials are going to cost during which show/day, and the client tells me which commercial they want to air for which show/day, and for how long (a day, a week, month, etc), and I get to make sense of it all.  I mostly do data entry type stuff.  But it's also my responsibility to get the commercial from the client, make sure it's the right length and content, relay all that information to our operations department (that I used to work in), make sure it's ready for air when needed, and coordinate all that information to needed parties. I process the finalized "Log" or playlist and send it to our automation that puts it on TV for you to enjoy (haha-ya, we all hate commercials).  Bottom line, if the wrong commercial goes to air, or the right commercial doesn't air, or there is any sort of problem with commercials--it's my butt on the line. 

Previous to this position I worked in Operations (Master Control/Ingest/and Camera).  Compared to this job, it was seriously a piece of cake, although it was challenging.  Mostly because I worked graves and no one bothered us. We did our job and still had A LOT of free time to just watch TV, chit chat, and goof off.  While still monitoring everything of course ;-)  Coming to this position was a huge blessing, a bit more pay, a day schedule (what I had been praying for), my own office, and tons of responsibility.  It's been a very hard adjustment.  I'm used to doing my job, going home, and not worrying about work until the next day.  Now I'm on call 24/7 and believe me, they call me at all hours about problems, or things missing, or computer issues.  It's a huge change.  I love it most days.  But some days I worry that this job is too much for little old me.  I'm a lot more confident in my job, but I feel like such a slow learner.  Every mistake is a huge loss money wise, and requires meeting after meeting.  It can be very discouraging and depressing. 

Fortunately, I rarely make mistakes now, but in the beginning it was very hard learning the ropes and mistakes seemed to be a daily occurrence.  But, they do still happen occasionally.  That's life.
I really like the people I work with.  We laugh, we have fun, we joke.  But most of the day it's quiet in the office and I'm listening to my headphones.  Kinda boring. 

So that's my job in a nutshell.  So completely different from my dance studio days...but it pays the bills and keeps my family fed.  I'm grateful to have a job period.